Taming the Tongues

In Minneapolis last week, the 47-member American Lutheran Church Council voted to throw the Rev. A.

Herbert Mjorud off the church's evangelical staff. His offense was one that appalls, embarrasses and deeply worries church leaders: promoting glossolalia, the practice of praying in "gibberish."

Without question, glossolalia is the fastest-growing fad in U.S. Protestant churches. Once a peculiarity of Pentecostals, "speaking in tongues" has caught on with Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, and there is now a national association of glossolalists, the Blessed Trinity Society in Van Nuys, Calif. At least 260 of the 5,239 American Lutheran churches have glossolalia cells; many of them took up the practice after Pastor Mjorud stopped by to preach at revival meetings.

Open Doors. Born in Minnesota to Lutheran parents, Mjorud, 54, grew up in Alaska, and was converted from agnosticism back to his childhood faith in 1942. He gave up the practice of law to enter the ministry, and two years ago attended his first glossolalia service at an Episcopal church in Seattle. After several months of prayer, Mjorud began speaking in tongues himself, started trying it out on interested Lutherans during his mission trips. Mjorud, who is also a devotee of faith healing, was warned several times by the Evangelism Commission, and only the intervention of A.L.C. President Fredrik Schiotz saved him from dismissal last year. Although fired as a traveling evangelist, Mjorud is still free to accept a call by any congregation that wants him, and he intends to keep on speaking as the Spirit directs. "It's my calling," he says, "and there are many open doors."

Glossolalists argue that they are reviving a spiritual exercise of the early Christian church, and they often quote St. Paul in I Corinthians, who lists speaking in tongues as a gift of the Holy Spirit, along with prophecy and healing. They hoot at skeptics. "It's pretty hard for a man with an idea to go up against one with an experience," says one self-satisfied glossolalist. Sample tonguing: "Ulla, ulla, unga, unga garah, atta alia ungaraze."

Spiritual Need. An A.L.C. committee investigating glossolalia last year warned that it has led to "divisions and tensions" in many congregations; tongues advocates often tend to slight regular worship services, force the practice on doubters, and develop into an ecstatic spiritual elite. But Lutheran leaders have little hope that the tongues will now be silent. Admits Dr. Schiotz: "Perhaps it is a reaction against the tendency to over-intellectualize the Christian faith. Speaking seems to fill a spiritual need for simplicity and emotional attachment."

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